CKCU-FM

CKCU-FM

City of license	Ottawa, Ontario
Broadcast area	National Capital Region
Branding	CKCU, The Mighty 93.1
Slogan	Ottawa's Community Radio Station
Frequency	93.1 MHz (FM)
First air date	November 14, 1975
Format	Campus Radio/First Nations community radio
ERP	12 kWs
HAAT	262.5 meters (861 ft)
Class	B
Callsign meaning	C K Carleton University
Owner	Radio Carleton Inc.
Webcast	MP3 Flash
Website	www.ckcufm.com

CKCU-FM is a Canadian community-based campus radio station, broadcasting at 93.1 FM in Ottawa, and offering live and archived on-demand MP3 streams from its website. The station broadcasts 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.

The station's studios are located on the campus of Carleton University, on the fifth floor of the University Centre building. The station's signal is radiated from the Ryan Tower in the Gatineau Hills, along with most of Ottawa's other private and public radio stations, meaning that it enjoys full broadcast power and a listening area with a radius of 100 km.

History

CKCU Radio Carleton is Canada's oldest community-based campus radio station. It first broadcast on November 14, 1975 when it played Joni Mitchell's "You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio". CKCU broadcasts live 24 hours a day to a 100 km radius on FM 93.1.

CKCU airs over 100 different shows each week, including multicultural programs in 14 languages. The schedule includes both general and specialty music programs, public affairs and spoken word programming, and features many shows with a topical or international flavour. Some shows feature live in-studio performances by local artists. CKCU actively supports, sponsors and promotes local independent musicians, venues, concerts and festivals including the Ottawa Folk Festival.

Volunteers from the campus and community program and host all shows. Often dubbed the mighty 93 by devotees, CKCU has a freeform format that allows the hosts to pick all the music played, and has many cultural/community programs.

The listener-supported station has an annual funding drive in late October and early November, to raise one-third of its annual operating budget. In 2006, this raised over $108,000 (unofficial total as of November 5, 2006). In recent years the funding drive regularly raised over $100 000 towards the station's budget of just over $300 000 per year. A further $100,000 is raised from university student levies, with the balance is supplied by advertisers and sponsors. The station self-produces much of the advertising material it carries, giving the advertising a campus flavour popular with listeners.

Each March break and several times during the summer, CKCU runs a unique Radio Camp for kids ages 10–14. The camp has been growing in popularity since 2003 and features a live two-hour kids broadcast.

CKCU-FM was included amongst other architecturally interesting and historically significant buildings in Doors Open Ottawa, held June 2 and 3, 2012.

Selected programs (Currently on)

• The Back 40 - A program of traditional country, western, and bluegrass music.
• Both Kinds of Music
• Black & Blues
• Canadian Spaces - A folk/roots/acoustic music show which has aired since 1980.
• Earthgauge - environmental news and interviews hosted and produced by Mark Brooks.
• Friday Morning Cartunes - Hosted by John Westhaver, of Birdman Sound fame.
• Hammer Smashed Radio - A heavy metal program focusing on extreme metal, hosted by Jay Cross.
• In a Mellow Tone - A jazz program heard every Wednesday from 9-11pm.
• The Filibuster - A political music/news show which airs every Monday morning at 9:00am and Friday morning at 8:00am.
• The Red Zone - A weekly program decidated to sports talk radio. Hosts debates and special features on a regular basis.
• An Indian Morning - Hosted by Harsha Dehejia and Kishore Sampat, the show focuses on the music of India, including folk, classical and devotional and film music.
• Special Blend - A morning show which airs weekdays from 7 to 10 a.m., the show follows a talk/music format with a focus on current affairs, particularly news stories of local interest.
• CKCU Literary News - An internet-based broadcasting service of CKCU-FM, affiliated with Carleton University in Ottawa. This service includes Literatures in Europe Today, Les actualités littéraires dans le monde francophone, hosted by Hans G. Ruprecht, alternating with Das Literarische Echo, co-hosted by Hans G. Ruprecht and Helmut Zobl.
• Remote Planet - A local comedy troupe including Tonia Snow, Richard Hemphill, Bill Demmery, Marc-André Bélair, Marg Tannahill-Wade and Richard Parks.
• Reggae in the Fields - hosted by Junior Smith, Saturdays, 3-5:30pm. Canada's longest running radio program over 38 years in your ears!
• Soy Latinoamérica - A bilingual radio show (English and Spanish) featuring music from the Latin America and Caribbean region, as well as interviews with different personalities ranging from the national musical scene (Latina/o-Caribbean artists) to professionals, activists, students, scholars, as well as diplomats in Ottawa. By Alejandro Hernández.
• The Sixties - A series profiling 1960s pop and rock music.
• Swing Is in the Air - A weekly swing and mainstream jazz program.
• This Island Earth - A world music program heard every Sunday from 1-4pm EST and hosted by the This Island Earth Collective.
• The Drunken Master Revue - A movie-talk show by movie geeks for movie geeks.
• Turn Up The Radio
• WildWorks
• Bew Cocky Salsa
• Vintage Love
• Whatever's Cool With Me - A general music show.
• Fundamentally Sound
• Barrio Latino - Latin Music Friday 5PM to 7PM
• Aboriginal CKCU
• The Mix
• Heatwave hosted by Massive Vibes & Selecta Dri Dri.

Famous alumni

• Ian Mendes
• Jeremy Gara
• Ken Rockburn
• David Mowbray
• Jeff Green
• Jason Moscovitz
• Rob Braide
• Geoff Pevere
• Chuck Rubin
• Neil Bregman
• Max Wallace
• Casey Kenny
• Adrian Harewood
• Mike Ross

External links

• CKCU-FM
• CKCU history - Canadian Communications Foundation
• Query the REC's Canadian station database for CKCU-FM